The tax rate in the US gets pretty close to 50% when all the municipalities take their cut. If you're in Silicon Valley, most devs are going to be paying a 41%-44% tax rate just from federal and California income tax. Then you've got any local taxes, land taxes, etc that add onto that

But the service you get from German government is so much better, healthcare is a good example here.

Self employed consultants are pushed into private healthcare, which will ruin you when you retire (you have to keep paying >>$1000 per month until you die).

That's paid on top of tax. Otherwise, I agree.

The 50% that most people note includes healthcare, or at least it did from 2009 to 2011.

Still does include healthcare as the other response stated (I'm not able to directly reply).